Designer Glasses Correct Red-Green Colour Blindness, 2AI Labs Reveals

2/11/2013 7:38:34 AM

Glasses developed to help doctors spot veins more easily have a useful side effect – they enhance the ability to see reds and greens. The glasses, made by 2AI Labs in Boise, Idaho, use filters to enhance perception of blood oxygen levels in vessels under the skin. But the filters happen to concentrate their effects around the wavelengths where red-green colour blind people are deficient. "We didn't design them for colour blind people," says Mark Changizi, of 2AI Labs, "but we weren't too surprised to find they help." Daniel Bor, a red-green colour blind neuroscientist at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, experimented with the specs after Changizi asked for testers on Twitter. "They made my daughter's lips and her red-orange jumper really stand out," he said.